Alfajores

Alfajor (plural: alfajores) refers in southern Spain to a confection of honey and nuts kneaded together and shaped into a bar, and in South America to a confection in which a sweet filling is sandwiched between pieces of baked dough. Even under the same name, the ingredients and shape vary greatly from region to region.

Confections of kneaded honey and nuts, and confections with a filling sandwiched in dough

In Medina Sidonia in southern Spain, honey and nuts are kneaded together and formed into bars. Heated honey is combined with roasted and crushed almonds, hazelnuts, breadcrumbs, wheat flour and spices, and the mixture is shaped and finished with syrup and sugar. These ingredients and steps are also set out in the rules for the protected geographical indication published in 2005.

Also in Spain, in Murcia, a paste of honey, almonds, hazelnuts, breadcrumbs, citrus peel, spices and other ingredients is sandwiched between two thin, wafer-like obleas. It is a confection eaten at Christmas, and there is also a tradition of depicting the Cross of Caravaca on the obleas. The sandwich form is therefore not unique to South America. Murcia uses thin obleas and a honey-and-nut paste, whereas in South America thicker biscuits are sandwiched with sweet fillings such as one made by cooking down milk.

In South America, the practice of layering two or more pieces of baked dough developed. Argentina’s 2001 food regulation defines the alfajor as pieces of baked dough joined with sweet fillings such as jam or milk-based fillings, with the outside either coated or uncoated. Whereas Spanish usage includes the bar form, Argentina defines the alfajor by its structure: “a sweet filling sandwiched between pieces of baked dough.”

Alfajores displayed at a confectionery shop in Rosario, Argentina. Items with different coatings are lined up. Photo: ElGuruCesar, 2020-12-26, Rosario, Argentina. Original image / CC BY-SA 4.0. Reduced-size version from the hosting source; no additional processing.

Two etymological theories about the name alfajor

There are also several theories about the origin of the word alfajor. The one popularized through sources such as the Argentine government’s introduction is the theory that it comes from an Arabic-derived word, al-hasú, meaning “filling,” by way of Andalusia. The dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy, on the other hand, traces it back to Hispano-Arabic fašúr and further to Persian afšor, meaning “juice.”

The linguist Federico Corriente argues that a form close to the Andalusi Arabic word for “filling” survives more faithfully in alajú, and that it was confused with the Persian-derived fašúr. Although the theories share an Arabic-derived origin, neither the meaning nor the route of transmission has been settled.

In Francisco Delicado’s tale La Lozana andaluza (1528), “rosquillas de alfaxor” appears in a scene in which the protagonist lists the dishes she learned from her grandmother. It is an old form of the word that referred to ring-shaped confections. Since before today’s two-layer sandwich became established, the name has referred to various confections, including ring-shaped ones.

Differences in dough, filling and finish

In South America, because the soft filling is sandwiched between pieces of baked dough, alfajores can be held in the hand to eat and carried around. In addition to doughs based mainly on wheat flour, some doughs use cornstarch, called maicena. An alfajor of maicena dough sandwiched with dulce de leche and with coconut rolled onto the seam differs from one entirely coated in chocolate, starting with the first layer the teeth meet.

Dulce de leche is a food made by heating and concentrating milk and sugar, and it is not the same as caramel, which is made by browning sugar alone. The combination of flours changes how the dough crumbles, and a filling of cooked-down fruit changes both the character of the sweetness and the moisture. There are also various finishes, such as glazing with icing, dusting with powdered sugar or coating in chocolate, so even alfajores of a similar round shape vary in flavor and texture.

In Argentina, local products widen these differences further.

• Patagonia: berries
• Litoral: mate
• Córdoba: fruit or honey
• Mendoza: wine
• Catamarca: capia corn added to the dough
• Cuyo: ground walnuts added to the dough

Regional ingredients are used not only in the fillings but also in the dough.

Ingredients and methods in Costa Rica and Paraguay

What is called alfajor in northwestern Costa Rica includes a confection of roasted corn flour bound with syrup. In this way, the same name is also used for a confection that does not sandwich a filling in dough. In the method recorded in a regional study by the University of Costa Rica, roasted corn flour, cinnamon and cloves are combined with a syrup made from tapa dulce, a non-centrifugal sugar. The aroma of the roasted grain flour and the sweetness of the syrup are mixed throughout the dough, and the way the ingredients are combined differs from that of confections that sandwich a sweet milk-based filling.

For Cartago in eastern Costa Rica, there is a literary work that depicts alfajores made with fruit. In his tale Tradiciones costarricenses (Costa Rican Traditions), written in a later period, Gonzalo Chacón depicted a scene in which pineapple and ginger alfajores were served at a wedding in Cartago in 1838. In this story, they are portrayed as a confection that combines the tartness of fruit with spice. They differ in both ingredients and flavor from the northwestern confection of roasted flour kneaded with syrup and from confections that sandwich a filling of cooked-down milk between pieces of baked dough.

In Paraguay, too, there are modern innovations in the flours used for the outer layers. One example from Madelina in Asunción combines corn starch, mandioca starch and rice flour with eggs, fat, molasses and sugar to make the dough. Fillings include dulce de leche and guava-based fillings. Mandioca is another name for cassava. In this example, the dough is made not by simply replacing wheat flour with mandioca starch but by combining several flours.

Peru’s King Kong, penco and confections of thin baked dough

King Kong, from Peru’s northern coast, belongs to a lineage of large alfajores that layer a sweet made by cooking down milk, called manjar blanco, with a pineapple preserve. Unlike small individually wrapped products, this confection, with its stacked layers of milk sweet and fruit, is cut into pieces to eat.

Penco, from Moquegua in the south, is characterized by a dough made with egg yolks and a cracked surface. According to the records of researcher Rosario Olivas Weston, who collected family recipes (ingredient proportions and methods), the egg whites and egg yolks are each whipped thoroughly and combined with pisco, a small amount of flour, a leavening agent and fat. Because the surface is dried after shaping and before baking, cracks open as the inside rises. Alongside a filling of sugarcane syrup mixed with walnuts, peanuts, bread or pastry crumbs and coconut, manjar blanco made by cooking down milk and fillings combining syrup and milk also spread in the mid-20th century. This celebratory confection has also changed to suit the tastes of migrants.

The late-19th-century recipe from Trujillo on the northern coast collected by Olivas involved baking thin layers of flour, salt water, eggs and lard and sandwiching syrup, pineapple, quince, milk sweets and the like between them. In Moquegua, the surface of a whipped dough is dried, while on the northern coast thin dough is baked. Even under the same name, the methods differ by region.

In Chile, a filling of grain flour and syrup is sandwiched between thin baked dough

Chile’s hojarasca is a thin baked dough used to sandwich fillings. Besides manjar, the fillings include an older type called “conserva de alfajor,” made with honey or chancaca. It is made by cooking down honey mixed with crumbs of the baked layers and flavoring it with toasted orange peel, and in rural areas methods using chancaca or roasted flour have also been handed down.

For what is called tablilla or guallaca in the O’Higgins Region of central Chile, the filling is made by adding chancaca, sugar and flour to a liquid in which orange peel and cinnamon have been simmered, and working the mixture into a paste. Thin layers of wheat flour, water and fat are baked and cooled, the filling is sandwiched between them, and they are coated with an egg icing. It is a confection carried on by local makers and is also served at festivals and village events.

Santa Fe’s salty layers and Uruguay’s white icing

In Santa Fe, Argentina, thin, salty layers are stacked with dulce de leche and covered with white meringue. There are also two-layer versions, and the saltiness of the layers is enjoyed together with the sweetness of the filling. In the city, Hermenegildo Zuviría, known as “Merengo,” is said to have opened a shop in 1851 and made biscuits and milk-based confections. This shop is linked to the history of the Santa Fe alfajor, which stacks thin, salty layers with a filling of cooked-down milk. The Santa Fe City Council recounts the memory that participants in the 1853 constitutional convention ate this confection when the convention was held. The shop history of the maker Merengo also cites a work by a local author that depicts people who came to the town for the convention staying on the shop’s upper floor and taking the confections back to their hometowns. The memory of the people who gathered in the town and of the confection has been passed down together with the drafting of the constitution. In 2024, the city council approved an ordinance declaring this confection intangible cultural heritage.

In Uruguay, too, there are versions that stack soft dough with dulce de leche and are coated in chocolate or in a white icing called “nieve.” Whether the dough is in two or three layers, and what it is coated with, change the balance of quantity with the filling as well as the texture.

A souvenir confection that spread along Argentina’s coast

As mass tourism expanded in the 20th century, this confection also became popular as a souvenir. On Argentina’s Atlantic coast, including Mar del Plata, alfajores sandwiched with dulce de leche and coated in chocolate became associated with seaside trips. This style had already been seen earlier in confectionery shops in Buenos Aires, and it spread as a souvenir at seaside resorts.

A souvenir that a traveler bought in Peru contained the baked dough, the filling and the powdered sugar packed separately. It is a product that the buyer finishes before eating by sandwiching the filling and dusting it with sugar. Compared with finished, individually wrapped products, it also offers a different way of enjoying the confection after taking it home.

Boxes decorated with designs inspired by landscapes and regions also became souvenir packaging that reminds people of their travels. As distribution expanded, factory-made individually wrapped products found their way into kiosks and supermarkets, and handmade celebratory confections, tourist souvenirs and everyday sweets came to exist side by side.

Individually wrapped alfajores displayed in a Buenos Aires shop. An example of the confection being sold as a gift or to take home. Photo: AsadoExplorer, 2024-06-26, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Original image / CC BY-SA 4.0. Original size; no additional processing.

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